7/2/07

Knitting Cables

Feeling a tad bit more comfortable with knitting, I would love to do a garment with cables. It's something about the serpentine like cables that make them a coveted design element. But the scary part is working with a third needle, which I'm sure for all new knitters would likely keep us from tackling a challenging endeavor. In my search on how to tackle cables, I came across Lori Knits. She has a Knitting DVD that teaches a knitter how to cable without the cable needle.... CN... (heyyy, I'm learning already...lol). Well I ordered the DVD and can't wait to get it. I am envisioning something like this or this

18 comments:

Don't feel nervous at all because you're not using that cable needle all the time, only on the rows you need it (the simpler the cable pattern, the less you'll use it). Example: I'm working on a 24-row repeat & I only use the cable needle on 4 of those rows. Not all the way across, either. The cable needle is holding your stitches & then you knit off them like a regular needle. Trust me, once you see that DVD, it won't seem so hard. Plus, when you feel more comfortable, you can actually make cables without needles (but don't ask me how, there are much better knitters who can show you--there's tutorials out there for that, too, including Grumperina's). You're going to be a knitting pro in no time at all, the way you're going!And those top patterns you picked are lovely.

I love CABLES! I think they are so cool! I think we have similar tastes. When I dabbled into knitting I fell in love with a cable sweater I saw in a book. I bought the book but stopped knitting. I had a friend who did a lot of cable style sweaters and it did not look hard at all. Maybe one day when I return to knitting I will see about doing a cable sweater or two!

I checked out a dvd I currently have... I played around with the 4 stitch cable technique, but the dvd only showed a one row illustration, so I wanted to know more. I had to switch from the metal cable needle (too pointy & causing myself harm...lol) to the plastic one.

Cables aren't as difficult as they appear. When you look at the difficulty levels of a lot of basic cabled pieces, many of them are classified as "Easy". When you get into the "cable acrobatics" shown in that beautiful off-the-shoulder, light brown sweater, things get a little bit more complicated, but not impossible. For those, you just have to be patient because you have to keep track of the frequent stitch crosses. All you need to do is know how to knit and purl and you can creat a cable. I think that for your first piece, you should do a simple piece like that bottom tank. Unless you're like me and love a challenge, then I'd go for the off the shoulder number.